


Underneath

by Kat_Of_Dresden



Category: Stargate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:38:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2486516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/Kat_Of_Dresden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TJ's thoughts on their lead scientist and what she knows of him, what she's seen of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath

She knew him almost by heart by now. 

His expressions, his hands, his scars. Nicholas Rush had been under TJ’s care more times than she would care to count. He went out in nearly every expidion, and when it wasn’t an indigenous animal or plant that attacked, it was an airborn toxin.... or he was just beaten up bit someone else of the expedition. Not the nicest man, Rush. But he didn’t seem to care about the punches he received. 

In fact, his health didn’t seem to be much of a worry for the guy. He ate little, slept poorly and spent an impossible number of hours working. Hell, even when he was in his quarters he was probably working too, trying to break another code, uncover more secrets. 

And TJ... she didn’t like him-like him but she didn’t dislike all that much either. Maybe because she had seen him at his lowest, when he was most vulnerable. And sometimes, he could be even almost kind. Like the time when he passed out and admitted that he was embarrassed about what had happened. Or when he came back from the aliens and she checked him over for injuries, he had been so silent, so... absent. And she wouldn’t forget the despair when he woke up in the middle of surgery. Utter, uncensored despair. Primal fear. 

It was a side of him most people didn’t get to see, a side TJ tried to remember when the grumpy scientist was shouting at people and generally not helping. 

Because there was more to the guy than just science and insults and arrogance, she knew it. She also knew that wasn’t going to discover an angel under the walls he held up, nothing like that. But the guy had feelings and was a person... that, at least, TJ suspected. And maybe it was true that he didn’t care about the looks people gave him, or about the fact that he’d abandoned to die. Maybe. But maybe....

“Lieutenant?”

The actual man’s actual voice distracted her from her thoughts. Of course, the train of thought had begun begun because he had appeared on the infirmary. Voluntarily. With no one asking him to come. He had left his job and sought her out. Which was weird. Really weird. And she started thinking about the man, trying to figure what reason he could possibly have to come and got a bit lost on her own thoughts. 

“Yes?”

“Did you listen to a word I’ve said?” He said, obviously pissed. 

Oh. So he had been speaking, hadn’t he? TJ browsed in her recent memory for a word, something that would help her. No. Well, she was a observant woman maybe she could take a shot in the dark. 

“You said you needed something to sleep.” She guessed, noting the prominent dark shadows under his eyes.

“Yes, exactly, anything, even if it’s experimental.” He said, clearly relieved at not having to repeat himself. 

“Well, for that we would have to determine the cause of the insomnia...”

Rush shook his head. 

“It’s not insomnia...”

TJ understood without needing any more words. 

“Oh. Nightmares.”

Rush nodded, looking at everywhere but her. As if he was late for some big event and she was holding him off or something. 

“I don’t have anything for that, sorry. We need the sedatives for surgeries and gravely injured people, we don’t have much of them anyway. I could give you a yellow thing that kind of tastes like chamomile tea... it’s supposed to, at least.”

Rush sighed loudly.

“I knew that there wasn’t going to be anything. But... I had to try. Good day, lieutenant.”

He stood up from the chair in front of her and started leaving, running a hand through his hair. 

“Hey, Rush? You can always talk, you know, about the nightmares. There’s patient doctor confidentiality with me.”

The scientist looked at her, disbelieving. 

“You really think I would?”

“No, but... I had to try.”

His face changed into something that wanted to be a smile but didn’t quite manage it. 

But it was something... something of the man under the walls she’d been searching for. 

She found herself wishing the man would come back.


End file.
